Lear earns laurels from Writers Guild

Norman Lear has been selected to receive the Writers Guild of America West’s Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for television, to be presented at WGA’s annual awards event March 22.

The award is the guild’s highest for TV writing, recognizing a body of work that has “advanced the literature of television through the years” and “made outstanding contributions to the profession of the television writer.”

Lear’s TV credits include the series “All in the Family,””Maude,””Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “The Jeffersons” as well as the more recent series “The Powers That Be” and “Sunday Dinner.” He is currently working on two CBS pilots through his Act III Communications.

Lear began his career writing on such programs as “The Colgate Comedy Hour” and “The George Gobel Show” before teaming with producer Bud Yorkin in 1959, forming Tandem Prods., which eventually blossomed into a TV empire after “All in the Family” premiered in 1971.

The Laurel award was presented last year to “I Love Lucy” creators Madelyn Pugh Davis, Bob Carroll Jr. and late Jess Oppenheimer.